Elsewhere, the United boss accused previous club Everton of holding back the careers of Marouane Fellaini and Leighton Baines by refusing to sell them to his new employers.

The Toffees were angry at the "derisory and insulting" £28m joint bid for Fellaini and Baines made at the start of this week, as it fell well short of their valuation of the duo.

Moyes said he sympathised with his old club, but claimed he would probably have let the pair join United by now had he still been in charge.

"I know that if I'd been Everton manager and Sir Alex [Ferguson] had come asking for Leighton Baines and Marouane Fellaini, I'd have found it very difficult to keep them," said Moyes. "Because I always felt the right thing to do was what was right for the players.

"I signed every player at Everton, so I know a lot about them. They are a great club and they are both excellent players.

"The bid, from Manchester United's point of view, was a private thing. And if/when we make a new offer, we'd keep that offer private and confidential as well.

"The transfer window is open and we can make bids and you can say 'Yes' or 'No', it's as simple as that. That's what it is. You're allowed to bid.

I think there's sort of a mixed market at the moment. No-one is quite sure where the price is right now. It's a sort of strange market.

"Suddenly someone could give you big money. We've had offers for players at this club which we feel are quite small.

"I can see it where other clubs might be thinking it's not enough value for their players as well.

"Everton are the club I've just left, they are a great club, I respect them greatly and in no way would I want to do it in a way that affects them.

"Of course, taking a player is going to affect them, but I'm not trying to [affect them] - I'm doing what I have to do in my job."

Everton boss Roberto Martinez was highly critical of United's pursuit of Fellaini and Baines, but Moyes hit back and claimed his successor was still finding his feet at Goodison Park.

"All we can do is do our job here," he said. "Roberto is in a new job and I'm sure he'll get to understand how Everton work. I know exactly how Everton work.

"I think I've signed every player at Everton. So I know exactly how they work.

"I speak to [chairman] Bill Kenwright regularly - we speak most weeks. He was great for me and hopefully he would think that I'd done a good job for him as well and Everton.

"There's no way there's any disrespect whatsoever.

"This is just a case where we've made an offer - we didn't make it public to anybody. So we'll try and answer the questions as best we can."